Tuesday, August 01, 2006

So what's wrong with me?

Still not sure, although I have a guess. I kept running fever off and on all weekend, with no other symptoms, something I've never done in my life. So I went to see my doc yesterday. Given the lack of symptoms, it was hard for her to diagnose anything - she checked/asked about the obvious suspects (ears, nose, throat, lungs, kidneys, bladder) for infection, all of which were fine, and then she ordered bloodwork. In the round, though, I found out my blood pressure was pretty nasty - 138/106, on one medication already. YIKES. So she added Toprol to the Hyzaar I'm already taking - we'll see if that helps. I haven't heard anything about the bloodwork yet, but I'm fully expecting it to show nothing out of the ordinary. I think this weird fever was God's way of prodding me to go to the doctor to get my blood pressure under control before my head popped right off. Had I had anything going on that I'd been able to say, "Oh, it's just a sinus infection" or "it's just a cold", I'd have blown it off until I felt like total crap. A weird fever, well, that got my attention.

And the blood pressure was epiphany #1 yesterday. I'm not going to be the next heart patient at my company (and there are several). I'm convinced work is the biggest single contributor to my high blood pressure. When I go to the doc on meds after going to work and it's through the roof, but then go when I've been out of meds for two or three days but haven't been to work at all that day and she comments on how good my blood pressure is - you do the math on that one. I now need a new job for more than just financial reasons - it's a matter of my health and well-being now, and I don't mess around with that. I've got a little boy who needs his mama to be here for a good little while yet, and I'm fairly confident that if I don't get out of where I am now and into something better suited for me and a lot less stressful, I'll either become a heart patient or just drop dead of a stroke, and I don't like those options. So - the job search continues, but with a bit more urgency now.

Then there was epiphany #2 at the grocery store. I was waiting for my prescription to be filled, and picking up a few odds and ends for J and I, and I saw a little girl with her father. The little girl may have been 7 or 8, and there's no way to say it other than that she was fat. Bless her heart, she was, and not just baby pudge that will drop away as she grows up. This was the kind of weight that sticks with you unless you make a concerted effort to get it off. I recognize it because I've seen it on myself. Her dad was a big guy, too, and it hit me. I don't want to look like that. I don't want J to be the fat kid in his class. I need to eat better so that J will develop good eating habits based on what he learns at home. So, I'm working on it. Unfortunately, it's not particularly cheap to eat the good stuff, and money is in short supply. Reason #4,783 why I'd like a new job now, please.

And now that I've done my share of venting about K, I'll say something nice. :-) My dryer is out of sorts. I took the lint filter out a few days ago, and I thought a big gob of lint had fallen off and down into the dryer. Not wanting to start a fire, and thinking I'd be clever, I wrapped a Pledge Grab-it around a hanger and tried to fish the lint out with that. Problem was, the Grab-it also came off in the dryer. D'oh. I then tried fishing the whole mess out with duct tape wrapped on a hanger. No luck. K pulled the dryer out for me and disconnected the tubing so I could try to pull the offending lint and Grab-it out, but we couldn't find it, couldn't suck it out with the vacuum cleaner. Bother. So I thought, well, I'll just try the dryer and see what happens. I turned it on, and within about 30 seconds it was making this horrible whining noise. It went right back off. And K kindly took J's laundry and some essentials for me and washed and dried them and brought them back. :-) Good thing, as I was out of underwear! I'm glad he did that for me. But I've got to get the dryer fixed, because I still have a crapload of other laundry to do, and I can't ask him to do all of it. Good thing it's still under warranty, so it shouldn't cost anything to fix. For once I'm glad I paid for the extended protection plan.

1 comment:

DEJA-VU to the blood pressure ordeal...I have the same exact problem. My doctor kept telling me it was very high (I always went there from work), and had me on Toprol for it. He pissed me off, and I went to a different doctor on Saturday, and she said that my bloodpressure was very low. Coincidence or not...I don't think so. I think our jobs are going to kill us, if we don't make some changes in our lives. It just sucks so badly when you can't live without a paycheck, and therefore can't take the risk of quitting and looking for a new stress free job. UGH!!! I feel your pain!

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About Me

I'm the happily married, full-time working, crazy commuting mom to an 8-year-old diagnosed with ADHD and a full-tilt toddler. I need 36 hours in my day, but since I can't have that, I make do with lots of coffee.